


Day 3: What are the Odds?

by LtLime23



Series: August MEFFW Challenge [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 14:36:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11693727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLime23/pseuds/LtLime23
Summary: Day 3 of A month of Fan fiction.Prompt: Family





	Day 3: What are the Odds?

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of A month of Fan fiction.
> 
> Prompt: Family

This was, unexpected.

Shepard sat with her head in her hands, what were the odds? If you stacked up all her life events, what were the odds that all those things would happen to one person? A trillion to one? It wasn’t that she wanted to bask in the shallows of a pool of self-indulgent ‘woe is me’ but factually speaking what were the odds.

She mentally ticked them off, letting her nails dig into her scalp with each:

Survive the pirate attack.

Make it through a childhood in the Alliance.

Impress on basic training.

Fulfil her biotic potential.

Pass out of N7.

Take command of the Normandy, become a Spectre, defeat Saren, die, work for Cerberus, save her crew, make a return trip through the Omega 4 relay, meet incredible people, grieve heroic sacrifices, save the fucking galaxy and, not die.

Then you add this latest turn of events and everything that had come before simply seemed like a logical journey, this was the real, what the actual fuck moment.

Shepard sat up, she was being addressed but the words seemed distant, incoherent, she tuned her ears back into reality.

“I said, would you like to hold her?” The Asari nurse looked down at Shepard kindly; she was used to shell shocked new parents. Shepard nodded, wide eyed, her voice lost somewhere in the nerves of her stomach.

“Take off your shirt and lie back so she can bond with you.”

Shepard did as she was told, grateful for the first time of the overheated maternity suite. She couldn’t help but marvel as the midwife gently lay the tiny naked form of her daughter on her chest, before cocooning them both in a soft blanket.

Shepard felt the tears overwhelm her, as unexpected as this was the love that was currently pouring out of her soul seemed to have always been there, it felt familiar, simply requiring tiny blue fingers to push open the door of her heart. She felt an odd sort of shame, her hands far too large and rough to cradle such a delicate, perfect being.

Her daughter stretched, eyes still closed, tiny mouth parted, before burrowing herself deeper into Shepard’s body. That’s when Shepard felt it, an abstract, detached presence that danced around her, it was like trying to hold sand or catch smoke, Shepard stopped trying to find purchase and relaxed, letting her daughter’s mind flutter through her own.

Shepard closed her eyes, aware of another presence calling her, she let herself fall into the calm stillness, welcome relief as it was the last time she was here.

“You were right not to tell me.”

“Shepard, you came to me a whirlwind of chaos, imploding, broken.”

The Commander let the words wash through her, remember flashes of her not so distant past. How despite defeating the Reapers she felt so small, so lost, so fragile. She spiralled out of control, unable to cope, years of trauma catching up with her, flooring her, making her ache for solace. Then she’d found it, in the arms of the great Pirate Queen of Omega, Aria hadn’t pitied her, hadn’t asked anything of her, had simply seen a reflection of herself, had seen a woman who demanded respect but needed to be held, needed to feel light and stillness, needed to consume something other than war.

“You helped me heal” Shepard whispered.

“You helped me feel.” Aria remembered pulling herself back from the cliff edge that terrified her, she hadn’t exposed herself like this for a long time. In that moment though, she knew the only way she could save Shepard was to open herself, to show her cards, to lay herself bare, shedding her skin. In doing so her very essence had reached out to Shepard, asking for permission, a selfish act, requesting something Aria hadn’t even realised she so desperately craved.

Shepard looked down at her daughter, “she’s beautiful.”

“She’s loved.”

Shepard fought to quell the squall of uncertainty that swam, turbulent and bitter at the back of her head. She felt Aria banish those thoughts.

“It wasn’t how I planned it either” Aria stated, “but I need her, and she needs you.”

Shepard let her fingers lovingly follow the curve of her daughters crest, “can we make this work?”

Shepard felt Aria’s amusement, “if the saviour of the galaxy and the Queen of Omega can’t somehow make this work then the rest of the universe is screwed.” Aria gently let go of Shepard’s mind, the pair grinned stupidly at one another across the room, “besides” Aria continued, “what’s eighty years between friends?”


End file.
